(Import) DVD Review: 7500 (2014)

You know, I actually found myself kind of liking this movie right up until the back half, when it promptly shit the bed.

7500 was originally supposed to be released waaaay back in August of 2012. For some reason, it was delayed until April 2013. For some other reason, it was delayed again until October 2013. For yet another unknown reason, 7500 was delayed again until sometime in 2014.

It doesn't really matter what the specifics are, because when a movie is delayed that many times over the course of two years, it's because it sucks, and the people who own it, know it.

Some people will surely say that 7500 won't be released because of the recent real-world disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370, which would make sense due to the film's subject matter and similarities to that tragedy, but make no mistake; this movie has been shelved over and over again since 2012 because it's really bad.

This review is going to be Spoiler Heavy, because there's no way to avoid spoilers if we're going to discuss this movie in appropriate fashion.

Flight 7500 is en route from L.A. to Tokyo, with a lively cast of characters on board, all of whom have some serious issues; there's a vacationing couple who are only happy on the surface; a doucher thief; a married couple,one of whom is a snobby bitch; a creepy dude with a mysterious wooden box; a Goth chick who is overly-witty and not afraid of death; and two stewardesses, one of whom is a spineless lair, the other a whore.

THE WHORE IS IN RED.

After the plane experiences some turbulence, creepy box guy winds up vomiting blood, and dies. The plane carries on, and the guy's corpse is moved to the upstairs section of the plane, and covered with a blanket. Soon after, another incident occurs (in which the plane experiences a drop in cabin pressure, oxygen masks drop from their little compartments, and an eerie smoke fills the cabin), and everyone is even more freaked out.

BUT WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

Things go from bad to worse when creepy box guy's corpse goes missing, and everyone discovers a creepy and supposedly evil doll in his creepy box. From here on out, people begin to die at the hands of some off-camera monster or something, and by the time the end of the movie rolls around, you realize that the whole thing has been some sort of allegory about being at peace with how shitty of a person you are before you die. Yeah.

DON'T WORRY, MATE, NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW YOU WERE IN THIS MOVIE, BECAUSE IT WILL NEVER SEE A PROPER RELEASE.

7500 could have been a solid movie: it's got a great cast; an interesting premise involving a Shinigami Death Doll; and a competent director in Takashi Shimizu, who is no stranger to Horror films. Sadly, the script is so bad, and the movie was executed in such a haphazard and ineffective way, that there's really not much that could have saved it from it's own silliness.

I guess our biggest issue with 7500, is that we hate movies that kill their own mojo with a shitty ending, or a lame twist that negates everything that they've been selling you up until that point; in this case, it's the old "the characters are dead, but don't really understand that they're dead" gag that killed it for us.

THERE WERE SOME PRETTY CREEPY MOMENTS IN THE MOVIE, BUT NOT NEAR ENOUGH OF THEM.

It's obvious that the filmmakers tried to make a Supernatural movie here, and it is one, but when it turns out that the characters are already dead for most of the movie, the only Supernatural aspect of things lies in the fact that they were ghosts who weren't ready to let go and cross over? There was no evil force trying to kill anyone, and the whole Death Doll subplot felt like a ruse, because the movie is really about a visage of death "taking" the spirits of the already-dead to the "other side" once they're "ready" to go. 

When you sell me on a premise involving an otherworldly force of some sort killing off the passengers on a plane, don't you dare give me this "they were already dead, and everything that happened after that didn't really happen in the way that it seemed to happen" bullshit. Maybe with a solid script, a story like that could have been effective and worked the way that this one was envisioned to, but that's just wishful thinking on our part.

MARILYN MANSON'S CAMEO IN THIS MOVIE WAS COMPLETELY WASTED.

The cast really tried here, as most of them are all solid actors in their own right, but they had very little to work with. In fact, it was baffling how well they were doing their jobs in the confines of such a mess of a movie.

The mechanics of the movie weren't any better. The "scary" parts of 7500 were all poorly executed jump scares, and every time something "happened," all we got to see were the actors staring off-screen and screaming... and then that was it. There was no visceral payoff whatsoever.

About the last scene in the movie, we wrote this in our notes: "That legitimately had to be one of the worst, most nonsensical jump scares ever."

Ditto that basic sentiment for the movie in general, and you have yourself the perfect summary of 7500.

THEY LOOK BEWILDERED. AT LEAST WE WEREN'T ALONE IN THAT.

It's absolutely no surprise that this movie was repeatedly, and still is, delayed, because it's just plain bad. If you really, really want to see it, despite our warning, it's available on German Blu-ray & DVD, so you could import a copy for yourself... or you could just move on to something else that would actually entertain you more.

Like watching paint dry.

While the movie may have sucked, it is at least populated with some very pretty ladies who made it all a bit more bearable.